


Then, As Now

by NoHolds



Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 - Fandom
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Illium - Freeform, Lair of the Shadow Broker (mission), Mass Effect - Freeform, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 13:12:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2111202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoHolds/pseuds/NoHolds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liara had only seen the commander like this once before.</p>
<p>It was more then two years ago, now. Back on the Citadel, racing against time and luck and any gods you happened to believe in to stop Sovereign...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Then, As Now

**Author's Note:**

> Based Loosely around the Lair of The Shadow Broker mission, this short little drabble drabble is what was going through my mind when I was playing through the mission.

        Liara had only seen the commander like this once before.

        It was more then two years ago, now. Back on the Citadel, racing against time and luck and any gods you happened to believe in to stop Sovereign.

        Shepard had been wild-eyed, mowing down geth and krogan alike, each bullet finding home in armor or flesh or silicone. She had seemed a hundred feet tall, blazing with purpose, with desperation.

        She was normally quite a cautious fighter, but then, as now, she charged enemies head-on, battering them to death with her fists, like even bullets weren’t fast enough.

        Now, quite unlike then, Shepard thought Liara was dead.

        Liara knew this, wanted with every fibre of her being to reach out, to hug and calm and soothe, to say that she was fine, to tell Shepard that everything would be okay. But there was no way to reach her.

        So Liara watched.

        Watched Shepard tear through enemies like a knife through butter, eyes wild, exuding this _aura_ of power, seeming to glow and hiss like hot water boiling into steam.

        Garrus was trailing behind her, and a stranger dressed in the robes of a Justicar, but for all their skill, it was all they could do to keep pace.

        It was different now, and it was also the same.

        Then, Shepard had been scarred, rough-healed cuts all over her face, the kind of scars you know not to ask about. Now the scars were gone. She was smooth-faced, skin new-born clear. Then, she had been angular, all muscles and rough living. Now, she was gaunter, somehow. More haggard, What little softness there had been in her worn away. She looked abrasive. She looked feral.

        Then, as now, she was breathtaking. In more ways then one. As she tore her way towards Liara, she was terrifying, and she was beautiful.

        Then, as now, Liara wanted nothing so much as to share her life with this woman. Or to share a fight with her, depending on the circumstance.

        When Shepard broke down the door, barging though, all steam-engine, all locomotive, and caught sight of Liara, she seemed to deflate, as she had after killing Saren- or at least, the thing that Saren had become.

        She didn’t look less intimidating, exactly, but she seemed mortal again. That fire, that unstoppable, god-like aura, faded from around her, and she looked like Shepard again.

        The Shepard that had checked up on Liara after every mission. The Shepard that had shared her bed, her thoughts, her heart.

        The Shepard that had made time for her crew, for her ship.

         _Liara’s_ Shepard.

        But then, as now, there was no time for Liara to say these things. There was only time for more running, more fighting, more clawing for survival, for salvation.

        Then, as now, there was always another fight to get to, another war to stop.

        And as it was then, and as it was now, and as it would always be, as long as she got to do it beside Shepard, Liara was content.

**Author's Note:**

> The parallels are somewhat based around my own experience playing Mass Effect- I had legitimately thought Liara was dead, and I got really, really into the game in a way I had only really gotten into it once before (During the final mission in ME1). But hey, she was fine and everything's great. This is a one-off, but there might me more Mass Effect stuff in the future as I muddle my way through the game.


End file.
